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Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Parry Creek Nature Reserve

Warning: Bird photos!
Those of you “in the know” would have been very surprised if there was not a blog entry about Parry Creek Reserve. I don’t like to disappoint so…
Our trip to Parry’s was a late afternoon day trip from Kununurra. We mucked around determining the best track in from the Great Northern Highway as we were getting close to Wyndham. We had two sightings of brolga in the surrounding bush as we approached. The trip was also punctuated by some close range experience of the Kimberley on fire.
All the pictures are at Marlgu Billabong which has boardwalks and a bird hide. There was a steady trickle of visitors – there was always one or two other cars with us.
Fancy not having enough binoculars to go around. Ellen is clearly disappointed! Well not everyone can have a huge camera lens and a funny hat!
Birding highlights seen here were seeing pied heron and pygmy goose for the first time among several other “lifers” – four lifers in four seconds without even turning the car engine off doesn’t happen often! This handsome pelican fed right in front of us – getting down low then dipping his whole top half under the water then sorting out the muck from the dinner. Jacanas looked great walking around on the lily pads.
There was a huge flock of plumed whistling-duck as well. After Marlgu we explored locally looking for the other Parry Creek lagoons but these turned out to be dry.
This shot taken from the car window as we drove along the highway north-west of Kununurra. The impression was of a controlled “cool burn” but there was no overt supervision. When we returned to Kununurra it was dark and the rows of flame made for a dramatic scene.
We were treated to a typical east Kimberley sunset as we drove past the ruins of a telegraph station near Marlgu Billabong.
Another memorable afternoon!